Malicious Office (OOXML) / .XLSX — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 7998a8f6b19c6c6f…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

291.1 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 14.0300
MD5: 92106fc6d77f17b3bddf93139372829a SHA-1: 60d3aeced8fa3b5227049c496b22ca0135789fb4 SHA-256: 7998a8f6b19c6c6fe8656391d7adeb11fa9af264b0742495c4eb76cda32574f3
242 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, which are known to be used for malicious purposes. The macros are designed to download a payload from the URL 'https://asimmistry.in/ds/121120.gif' and execute it using WinAPI functions like DownloadToFileA and ShellExecuteA. This indicates a downloader or droppper functionality.

Heuristics 5

  • Excel 4.0 macro sheet (1 sheet(s)) critical 3 related findings OOXML_XLM_MACROSHEET
    Spreadsheet contains an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro sheet — XLM was a major Office malware vector during 2020-2022 and evaded many VBA-focused controls before Microsoft tightened XLM defaults. Even legitimate XLM use is rare in modern workbooks. The macro sheet is stored as XLSB/BIFF12 binary content, which many XML-only OOXML scanners miss.
  • Binary XLM macro sheet with WinAPI/download strings critical OOXML_XLM_BINARY_WINAPI_STRINGS
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet is stored as BIFF12/XLSB binary data and contains Win32 download or process-execution API strings such as URLDownloadToFileA, ShellExecuteA, or CreateDirectoryA. These strings are high-signal in XLM macro sheets and catch payload-download macros that XML-formula scanners cannot parse.
  • XLM payload reassembled from CHAR()/split formulas critical OOXML_XLM_REASSEMBLED_PAYLOAD
    An Excel 4.0 macro sheet builds its payload inside the formula token stream by concatenating per-character CHAR() calls and string fragments, so no WinAPI name, shell command, or URL is ever contiguous in the .bin for a literal-bytes scan to find. Reassembling the formulas recovered download/execute API names, LOLBin commands (regsvr32/rundll32/mshta/wmic/powershell), or a payload URL — the de-obfuscated download-and-run kill chain.
  • URL reconstructed from XLM cell array (1 URL) critical OOXML_XLM_CELL_ARRAY_URL
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet stages its payload URL across individual numeric cells (one ASCII charcode per cell) or inside an embedded HTA that uses VBScript Chr()/&-concat obfuscation. The reconstructed URL is invisible to literal-bytes URL extraction because it is never contiguous in the workbook stream. URLs were recovered by walking the BIFF12 record stream of every worksheet and macrosheet part and decoding RK/inline-string cells in both row-major and column-major order.
  • Embedded URL info EMBEDDED_URL
    One or more URLs were extracted from the document. The URL itself is not a detection — see the per-URL labels for which channel (macro, JS, link annotation, document body, ...) reached each URL.
    URL https://asimmistry.in/ds/121120.gif Referenced by macro

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_sheet_00.bin
e39f99cce4c08293316c530f9ffbec398f6b293f40fe8f01025c72a98bb0721c
xlm-macrosheet OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/intlsheet1.bin 197215 bytes
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
�  �  �   @      ��������    �      &       �   �  �  �             @   d d         � $                                    �  �  %      ��    & �  q           �  <         q         <         q         <         q         <         q         <         q         <         q         < '   '   q         < 4   4   q         < i   i   q         < n   o   q         < t   t   q         <         q         �  �  %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &   	                                                      %      ��    &   
                                                      %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &   
                                                      %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &                                                          %      ��    &   !                                                      %      ��    &   "                                                      %      ��    &   #                                                      %      ��    &   $                                                      %      ��    &   %                                                      %      ��    &   &                                                      %      ��    &   '                                                      %      ��    &   (                                                      %      ��    &   )                                                      %      ��    &   *                                                      %      ��    &   +                                                      %      ��    &   ,                                                      %      ��    &   -                                                      %      ��    &   .                                                      %      ��    &   /                                                      %      ��    &   0                                                      %      ��    &   1                                                      %      ��    &   2                                                      %      ��    &  
... (truncated)